Devon blanched, cast Haplo a hate-filled glance, and turned his head again.
“Go away,” he muttered.
“You know”—Haplo continued as if he hadn’t heard—“if your body hangs there long enough, the carrion birds’ll come. The first thing they go for is the eyes. Your parents may not even recognize their son—or what’s left of him, when the birds are finished, not to mention the ants and the flies—”
“Stop!” Devon tried to shout, but it came out a sob.
“And there’s Alake and Grundle. They lost one friend, now they’ll lose another. You didn’t give them a thought, either, I suppose? No, just yourself. The pain, I can’t bear the pain,’” Haplo mimicked the elf’s light, piping voice.
“What do you know about it?” Devon cried.
“What do I know about it ... about pain,” Haplo repeated softly. “Let me tell you a story, then I’ll leave you to kill yourself, if that’s what you want. I knew a man, once, in the Laby—a place I lived. He was in a fight, a terrible fight, for his life. In that place, you have to fight to stay alive, you don’t fight to die. Anyway, this man was hurt horribly. Wounds ... all over his body. His suffering was beyond belief, beyond endurance.
“The man defeated his enemies. The chaodyn lay dead around him. But he couldn’t go on. He hurt too much. He could have tried to heal himself with his magic, but it didn’t seem to him to be worth the effort. He lay on the ground, letting the life seep out of him. Then something happened to change his mind. There was a dog . . .
“The dog.” Haplo paused, a strange, lonely ache constricting his heart. All this time, how could he have forgotten the dog?
“What happened?” Devon whispered, blue eyes intent upon the man. “What happened . . . with the dog?”
Haplo frowned, rubbed his chin; sorry, in a way, he’d brought it up, glad, in a way, to remember.
“The dog. The animal had fought the chaodyn and it had been hurt, too. It was dying, in such pain that it couldn’t walk. Yet, when the dog saw the man’s suffering, it tried to help him. The dog didn’t give up. It started to crawl, on its belly, to get help. Its courage made the man feel ashamed.
“A dumb brute, with nothing to live for—no hopes or dreams or ambitions—and it fought to go on living. And I had everything. I was young, strong; I’d won a great victory. And I was about to throw it all away . . . because of the pain.”
“Did the dog die?” Devon asked softly. Weak as a sick child, like a child, he wanted to hear the end of the story.
The Patryn wrenched himself back from his memories. “No, the man healed the dog, healed himself.” He hadn’t noticed his lapse, hadn’t noticed that he and “the man” had gotten rather mixed. “He rose to a position of power among his people. He changed the course of people’s lives . . .”
“Saved people from dragon-snakes? Or maybe themselves?” Devon asked, with a twisted, rueful smile.
Haplo stared at him, then grunted. “Yeah, maybe. Something like that. Well, what’s it going to be? Shall I leave you here to try again?” Devon glanced up at the cut vine, dangling over his head. “No. No, I’ll come . . . with you.” He tried to sit up, and fainted.
Haplo reached out his hand, felt for the pulse. It was stronger, steadier. He brushed aside a lock of flaxen hair caught in the dried blood on the neck.
“It will get better,” he told the unconscious young man. “You won’t forget her, but the remembering won’t hurt as much.”
22
The meeting of the royal families opened with stiff formalities, cold glances, unspoken resentment. From there, it moved to open hostility, hot words, and bitter recriminations.
Eliason’s position against war had not altered with the passage of time.
“I am quite willing to set sail in the sun-chasers and find this new realm,” he stated. “And I will undertake to negotiate with these ... er ... Sartan, since all know that elves are skilled in such diplomatic endeavors. I cannot see how these Sartan could refuse such a reasonable request, particularly when we explain how we will bring them much-needed goods and services. My advisers, having given the matter considerable study, have determined that this Sartan race must be relatively new to this realm themselves. We think it likely they’ll actually be quite glad to see us.”
Eliason’s face darkened. “But if not, if the Sartan refuse, well, after all, it is their realm. We will simply look elsewhere.”
“Fine,” said Dumaka sourly. “And while you are looking, what will you eat? Where will you find the food to-feed your people? Will you grow corn in the cracks in the deck? Or has elven magic come up with a way to pull bread out of air? We have calculated that we can carry barely enough supplies for the journey as it is, considering all the mouths we’ll have to feed. There will be room for no more.”
“The supply of fish is plentiful,” said Eliason mildly.
“Of course,” Dumaka retorted, “but not even an elf could live exclusively on a diet of fish! Without fruits and vegetables, the mouth-sickness[37] will come upon our people.”
Yngvar looked horrified at the mere thought of being forced to live on fish.[38] The dwarf planted his feet firmly on the ground, glared round at the assembly.
“You argue over who stole the pie when the pie hasn’t even been cooked yet! The sun-chasers are cursed; the dwarves will have nothing to do with them. And, after consultation with the Elders, we have determined that we will allow no one to have anything to do with them, lest the curse will come back on us. It is our intention to scuttle the things, send them to the bottom of the Goodsea. We will build more ourselves, without the help of snakes.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Eliason. “There will be time—”
“There will not be time!” Dumaka fumed. “You elves were the ones who figured up how many cycles we had—”
“You dwarves are worse than superstitious children!” Delu was arguing loudly.
“The ships are no more cursed than I am!”
“And who’s certain about you, Witch?” Hilda flashed back, side whiskers bristling.
At that moment, one of the doorkeepers, attempting to give the impression he was deaf and blind to the turmoil around him, crept into the longhouse and whispered something to Dumaka. The chieftain nodded, gave an order. Everyone else had ceased talking, wondering what this interruption portended. No one ever disturbed a royal meeting unless it was a matter of life and death. The doorkeeper departed swiftly on his errand. Dumaka turned to Eliason.
“Your guards have discovered the young man, Devon, to be missing. They’ve searched the camp, but no trace of him can be found. I’ve called out the trackers. Don’t worry, my friend,” the chief said, his anger forgotten at the sight of the elf’s anxiety. “We’ll find him.”
“A young fool’s gone for a walk!” Yngvar snapped irritably. “Why all the fuss?”
“Devon has been very unhappy of late,” said Eliason in a low voice. “Very unhappy. We fear . . .” His voice failed. He shook his head.
“Ach!” said Yngvar gravely, in sudden understanding. “That’s the way of it, is it?”
“Grundle!” Hilda called out sharply, loudly. “Grundle! Come in here, this instant!”
“What are you doing, Wife? Our daughter’s in the cave—”
“Take the sack off your head,”[39] Hilda retorted. “Our daughter’s no more in that cave than I am.” She stood up, raised her voice threateningly. “Grundle, I know you’re out there, spying! Alake, this is serious. I won’t tolerate any more nonsense from you girls!”
But there was no answer. Yngvar looked solemn, tugged at his beard. Stepping outside, he motioned to one of his attendants, a young dwarf named Hartmut, and sent him off toward the cave.
38
Dwarves have a low regard for fish and eat it only when no other, more substantial, food is available. A slang word among dwarves for fish is elmas-fleish, or “elf-meat.”
39
Reference to a popular dwarven drinking game, the rules of which are far too complex to describe and probably wouldn’t be believed anyway.